Handbook on Transformational Teamwork

Larry Cole Phd

Description

Simply stated, the financial success of your company is dependent upon your people working together! With that being the case, one would think that every manager's mantra would be to help other people and departments be successful. Sadly, that is not the case and inefficient teamwork is costing your company money every day.Supervisors can't force teamwork. Employees have freedom of choice and can, therefore, decide to help others be successful or not. Supervisors, though, are not victims of their employees' freedom of choice. Research has documented that production, quality, and safety improve when employees know the company's vision and supervisors exhibit a positive attitude while caring about their employees as individuals and challenging the status quo. This book provides the essential behavioral blueprints for supervisors to make it easy for employees to decide to implement transformational teamwork.

Sujets

• Gestion et management
• Office management

Informations

• Publié par: Larry Cole
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 0001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780984479412
• Langue: English

Extrait

A Handbook On Transformational Teamwork
A Handbook On Transformational Teamwork
Putting the Work in Teamwork to Work
Larry Cole, Ph.D.
Copyright 2010 Larry Cole
All Rights reserved.
Published by TeamMax
5 E. Towering Pines
Conway, AR 72032
www.teammax.net
Reproduction or translation of any part of this work beyond that permitted by Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act without the permission of the copyright owner is unlawful. Requests for permission or further information should be addressed to Larry Cole, 5 E. Towering Pines, Conway, AR 72032
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought from the American Bar Association and a committee of publishers.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.
First printing 2010
ISBN 978-0-9844794-1-2
Thank you David for suggesting that I write this book.
CONTENTS
Introduction
Chapter 1: Transformative Teamwork Inside Out
Chapter 2: Positive Influence
Chapter 3: Employee Motivation
Chapter 4: Challenge the Status Quo
Chapter 5: Caring
Chapter 6: Accountability
Appendix A: 7-Step Personal Change
Appendix B: 5 Stages of Organizational Change
Appendix C: Behavioral Definitions
Appendix D: Ugly Baby Conversation
About the Author
Introduction
If you were going to run in a race tomorrow morning, would you take a gun and shoot yourself in the foot tonight? Stupid question, right? Let s put the question into a different context. You re running in a race every workday to maximize profitability through production, quality, and safety. Would it be smart to shoot yourself in the foot in this race? The obvious answer is no. But you and your people are shooting yourselves and each other in the foot every day. Look around you at the frequency that:
A team member did not receive the necessary information to complete their job responsibilities. Team members reacted to a given situation with an emotional outburst. Teams do not cooperate with each other. Team leaders treat their team members as a baby treats a diaper. A team member endangered their life as well as that of others by deciding not to follow safety procedures. An egotistical team member acts in an I win, you lose manner. A team member fails to complete paperwork, thereby creating delays for another department. Team meetings consistently start late.
You can add to the list, but I m sure you get the point. Smart people make decisions to act stupid. Note I said make decisions. Unless someone is emotionally unstable, each of us decides to use the behaviors that facilitate teamwork or interfere with teamwork (There is an I in teamwork). And each time a team member decides to engage in behaviors that interfere with teamwork, that episode costs you money through interruptions in productivity, faulty work, diverting team members attention to talk about the inappropriate action, etc. Research shows that ineffective team member actions are stealing some 20-25% from your financial bottom line.
There is no doubt that you want your business to be financially profitable. So let s look at the situation from another perspective. If the technical side of your business operated at 75% capacity, what would you strive to do? The obvious answer-fix it. Then why not apply the same logic to improve teamwork? You would think that with the millions of words written and spoken about the benefits associated with teamwork that efficient teamwork would be the rule rather than the exception. But it s not. That fact begs the question, What is wrong with organizational leaders when they continue to allow teamwork to be so inefficient? There are multiple reasons for not fixing teamwork issues including the following:
People get into ruts and do not recognize the need to change. It s the way it is around here. The messenger gets shot so team members adhere to the see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil philosophy. People strive to avoid conflict. The belief that you can t fix people problems. People don t know how to improve teamwork. Teamwork performance standards have not been identified. There is a lack of accountability. People resist change.
You can add your own reasons to the list, but you get the picture. This brings us to why I wrote this book. The objective is to show you explicit behaviors that you can use to create a synergistic teamwork environment. Teamwork s bottom line is every team member and team is responsible to help other people and teams be successful. It s that simple. The challenge is that you can t force people to engage in the behaviors to help others be successful. Another fact to consider is that top down change produces bottom up commitment. That is, the senior leaders must, in Gandhi s words, be the change they wish to see in this world. Through their actions they model the desired teamwork behaviors and initiate the psychological environment in order that their followers will want to do the same.
Some organizational leaders, and you may be one of them, have the mistaken belief that the service or product provided by your company is the profit generator. Examine the flow of activities in your company. You only make money when a customer buys something that your people, working together, produced. What your company sells is a by-product of people working together. Money, in reality, is created by your people working together.
For just a moment, let s examine the relationship between getting results and teamwork in the following figure.

Figure 1 .

Hopefully, the ideal is obvious. I m going to show you the ideal behaviors through the Full Range Transformational Leadership Model. Without boring you with the details, this model has withstood the rigors of scientific research in a wide variety of organizations and the results consistently show that peak performance is the result of using behaviors that create the ideal state identified in Figure 1 . The full range of leadership behaviors is listed in Figure 2 .

Figure 2 .

Before introducing you to the teamwork behaviors that can transform your organization, an additional topic needs to be addressed. That topic is change. I know this is not always a popular word. Perhaps the good news is that the length of this book prohibits a detailed explanation of the change process. The bad news is you need to know how to manage the energy systems inherent in the change process. Appendix A provides a brief description of the 7-Step Personal Change process and Appendix B summarizes the Five Phases of Organizational Change.
Now let s begin showing you critical behaviors that will transform your teamwork.
Chapter 1
Transformational Teamwork Is From the Inside Out
Let s begin by defining transform. As a verb, Encarta Dictionary states that transform means to convert one form of energy to another. In a teamwork environment, that means creating an environment in which team members decide to kick it up a notch, become more engaged and inspired to be peak performers rather than average, complacent or mediocre. In doing so, the team achieves extra ordinary results.
The challenge is transformational teamwork just doesn t happen. Someone has to lead the effort. Is that someone you? If so, then we start our discussion about you. Regardless of your personality and assuming that you are also emotionally healthy (my assumption is correct, right?) you will find that you can initiate the transformational teamwork behaviors discussed in this book. To do so, you may have to convert your energy form to become more inspirational, positive, caring, motivational, and willing to challenge the status quo.
I frequently use the railroad track analogy to depict the fact that two well-maintained rails are essential for the train to reach its destination. An organization similarly has two rails: a technical rail and a people one. Both, of course, need to be well-maintained for the organization to succeed and I imagine you will agree that people drive the success of the technical rail. As an individual, you use two rails of skills-technical and interpersonal-on a daily basis to ensure your success. The reality of the organizational world is that your interpersonal skills will have a more positive influence upon the ultimate success of your career than your technical skills. Now let s consider two additional rails. There is the person you show other people through your actions and then there is the real you.
Let s talk about the real you. Consider your answers to the following questions. Why are you on the face of this earth? If you re like most people when I ask that question, I get a blank stare with the eventual answer, I don t know as I haven t thought about it. According to the answers I typically receive the next question is equally difficult. What do you want to be when you grow up? The answer, That s a good question and I wish I knew that answer. You should answer those questions for at least two reasons. First, life is much too precious to waste any moment not knowing and living these answers. Second, transformational teamwork is predicated on getting the collective intelligence and energy contained within your team working in concert to achieve a common vision. Your intelligence, beliefs, values, emotions, and actions constitute members of your psychological team.